NEO-BABYLONIAN LAWS (LNB)

Abstract

From the middle of the second millennium BCE, following the weakening and eventual overthrow of Hammurabi’s Old Babylonian Dynasty, the Assyrian Empire established military supremacy over much of the Near East, including Babylon. By the late seventh century BCE, however, the combined forces of Babylonians and Medes decisively defeated the Assyrians, and the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty (625-539 BCE) emerged as the political and military successor to the Sargonid kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Under these circumstances, Babylon regained both its economic and military strength.

During the reigns of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar, deliberate efforts were made to emulate the achievements of Hammurabi’s dynasty more than a millennium earlier. This included large-scale temple and public building projects, social reforms, scientific (especially astronomical) and literary activities, as well as the consolidation of legal and bureaucratic organizations. This politically and culturally sophisticated Babylon – immortalized in biblical and classical writings through its ziggurats and the Hanging Gardens – became the center of Near Eastern power. Yet, by the end of the sixth century BCE, the expanding Persian state under Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon, incorporated it as a satrapy, and thereby ended independent local rule in Mesopotamia.

Fifteen legal stipulations from the Neo-Babylonian Laws have survived, though neither a prologue nor an epilogue is preserved. The extant tablet may represent either a copy of a damaged original or a compilation assembled from incomplete sources. The surviving laws address matters such as agriculture and irrigation, agency transactions (purchases by power of attorney), the sale of slaves, unauthorized ritual acts, marriage, marital property, and inheritance. They can be thematically divided as follows:

Property and Agriculture: These laws address land parcels, agricultural disputes, land tenure, and compensation for damages.

• Field ownership (i 1-20);
• Damage caused by grazing (i 21-34);
• Damage to an irrigation canal (i 35-41);
• Concerning the mule (i 42-ii 3);
• Forgery of documents (ii 4-14).

Marital Property and Inheritance: These laws include regulations concerning dowries, marital acquisitions, and the distribution of inheritance.

• Inheritance and marital agreement (iii 3-22);
• Dowry: (iii 23-31; iii 32-36; iv 9-25; iv 26-v 4);
• Distribution of Inheritance: (v 32-44, vi 1ff.);

Legal Disputes and Punishment: These laws specify claims, penalties for magical or ritual acts, and issues concerning the sale of slaves.

• Sale of a female slave (ii 15-23);
• Magical or ritual acts (ii 24-45);
• Incomplete case description (iii 1-2).

The laws pertain primarily to the class of free persons (amelu), though the slave (ameluttu) is also mentioned.

Keywords: Assyriology, Mesopotamia, Neo-Babylonian, Law.